National, Samsung team up on LCD chip sets

SEOUL, South Korea  National Semiconductor Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. today announced a partnership to bundle integrated circuits from each party to be sold as low-power, low-noise chip sets for thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT-LCDs).

Under a licensing pact, National Semiconductor will provide its Reduced Swing Differential Signal (RSDS) digital interface technology for XGA-panel timing controllers, while Samsung will supply column drivers for TFT-LCDs.

"RSDS effectively resolves the problems we have encountered supporting higher-resolution displays without increasing power usage, bus interconnect and overall cost," said Oh-Hyun Kwon, senior vice president and general manager at Samsung. "By partnering with National, Samsung can offer its customers an optimal TFT-LCD solution and significantly strengthen our presence in the LCD driver market of the future."

For National Semiconductor, the agreement will put some momentum behind its RSDS technology in flat-panel display applications, said Mitchell Abbey, product marketing manager for National (Santa Clara, Calif.). "National and Samsung's collaboration addresses a real problem for customers designing display applications where TFT-LCDs are commonly used," said Abbey. "These devices are designed to work at new lows with regards to both power consumption and EMI-radiated noise  essential qualities for systems with extended battery life, reduced weight and lower cost."

The companies noted that bus interface between the panel timing controller and column drivers has historically been a major source of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and power dissipation inside a panel, due to the common use of TTL-level signaling on the bus. National's timing controller and Samsung's column drivers replace TTL signals on the bus with the RSDS interface signals.

The RSDS interface reduces the signal swing level and implements a differential signaling technique, resulting in significantly lower power consumption and EMI levels compared to the TTL bus interface, according to National. RSDS is a derivative of the Low-Voltage Differential Signal (LVDS) technology used in National's FPD-Link interface chip set for flat-panel displays.